Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

It always seems to pass by in the blink of an eye, and this year was no exception. Though I am excited for cooler temperatures and the prismatic colors of New England in the fall, I am sorry to see summer come to an end. The end of summer also means that kids are back in school, reunited with their friends and equipped with a bevy of new supplies for the new year. Our kids have the tools and supplies they need for success, why shouldn’t your business?

This month’s Insights Beat focuses on additions to our team’s ever-growing body of research on new and emerging data and analytics technologies that help companies maximize the value of their data.

Get Real About Real Time

Noel Yuhanna and Mike Gualtieri published a Now Tech on translytical data platforms. Since we first introduced the term a few years ago, translytical data platforms have been a scorching hot topic in database technology. Enabling real-time insights is imperative in the age of the customer, and there are a number of vendors who can help you streamline your data management. Check out their new report for an overview of 18 key firms operating in this space, and look for a soon-to-be-published Forrester Wave™ evaluation in this space, as well.

Don’t Turn A Blind Eye To Computer Vision

Interested in uncovering data insights from visual assets? Look no further than computer vision. While this technology has existed in one form or another for many years, development in convolutional neural networks reinvigorated computer vision R&D (and indeed established computer vision as the pseudo-progenitor of many exciting new AI technologies). Don’t turn a blind eye to computer vision just because you think it doesn’t apply to your business. Computer vision already has a proven track record for a wide variety of use cases. Kjell Carlsson published a New Tech report to help companies parse a diverse landscape of vendors and realize their (computer) vision.

Humanize B2B With AI

AI now touches on virtually all aspects of business. As techniques grow more and more sophisticated, so too do its use cases. Allison Snow explains how B2B insights pros can leverage emerging AI technologies to drive empathy, engagement, and emotion. Check out the full trilogy of reports and overview now.

Drive Data Literacy With Data Leadership

Of course, disruptive changes to data strategy can be a hard sell, especially when your organization lacks the structural forces to advocate for new ideas. Jennifer Belissent, in a recent blog, makes the case for why data leadership is crucial to driving better data literacy. Stay tuned for her full report on data literacy coming soon. More than just leadership, data and analytics initiatives require investment, commitment, and an acceptance of disruption. No initiative will be perfect from the get-go, and it’s important to remember that analytics initiatives don’t usually come with a magician’s reveal.

That’s all for this month’s Insights Beat. Check out our latest research, and stay tuned for more updates in October. Our team, along with other data and analytics industry leaders, will also be at our Data Strategy & Insights 2019 Forum on November 5–6 in Austin, Texas. Join us there to continue the conversation!

Note: You will need a Forrester subscription to access research featured and linked in this post.

(Jeremy Vale, research associate, contributed to this post.)